Bruins need more from top line in Game 4 against Canadiens

The Bruins' line of Milan Lucic, David Krejci and Jarome Iginla hasn't produced as consistently in Round 2 against the Canadiens as it did during the regular season. Krejci, a two-time NHL playoff scoring leader, is slumping most of all.

Playoff games and series are harder for everyone than the regular season. Teams certainly try to account for the best players on the other side, but in general, a regular-season game plan is more about a team trying to do what it does best, and less about taking something away from an opponent.

The postseason is different and more difficult for top players. Opponents go out of their way to negate them by whatever means possible. It happens through matchups. It happens through roughing players up and wearing them down. It happens through getting under the skin of those top players.

But that, as they say, is why those top players get the big bucks and one of the majors reasons the Canadiens take a 2-1 lead into Game 3 of this best-of-7, second-round playoff series against the Bruins tonight (7:30, NBCSN, WBZ-FM/98.5) is that the Habs’ key players have done more than the Bruins’.

Not completely, mind you. The Canadiens, for instance, haven’t found any an answer for the Bruins’ two-way line of Brad Marchand (5 assists), Patrice Bergeron (2 goals, 2 assists) and Reilly Smith (2 goals), which has outplayed the Habs’ top trio. Thomas Vanek has a couple of power-play goals, but linemates David Desharnais and winger Max Pacioretty (39 regular-season goals) have been held to an assist apiece.

Still, the Habs are in position to take a commanding lead if they win tonight because the B’s have found defenseman P.K. Subban all but unstoppable (3 goals, 3 assists), because goalie Carey Price (2.65 goals-against average, .920 saves percentage) has made more big saves than Tuukka Rask (2.97, .884), and because they’ve done such a good job at limiting the Bruins’ top offensive line.

Milan Lucic, David Krejci and Jarome Iginla are a combined 2-3–5 through Game 3, which is not great, and not even as good as it looks: The one goal Lucic scored was an empty-netter that sealed Game 2, and Iginla’s Game 3 goal came during a 6-on-5 manpower situation after coach Claude Julien pulled Rask. The line has combined for 19 shots through three games, but 11 came in Game 1. Krejci and Iginla have both managed only a single shot in each of the last two games.

The main concern is Krejci because his entire postseason has been weak: He managed only two assists in the Bruins’ five-game, first-round elimination of the Red Wings, and he’s now 0-3–3 and minus-3 through eight playoff games. Lucic (4-3–7, plus-3), who has managed a point in each game against the Habs, and Iginla (3-2–5, even) have at least been reasonably productive.

It’s an uncharacteristic drought for Krejci, who has twice led the NHL in postseason scoring (23 points over 25 games during the 2011 Stanley Cup run; 26 in 22 games last year) and has led the B’s in scoring three times, including this season (19-50–60). While he has experienced the occasional weak series over seven postseasons, his career playoff numbers – 29 goals, 47 assists, 76 points and plus-28 over 89 games – have established him as one of the NHL’s money players.

Page 2 of 2 - Following Game 3, in which Krejci had an assist on Iginla’s goal, but was still minus-1 with only one shot and won only 4-of-14 faceoffs (30 percent), Julien said “David, I think, is showing a little bit of frustration. He’s got to battle through that stuff.” Of the line as a whole, the coach said, “We need them. … It’s a line that’s given us a lot this year and sometimes you have to have a little bit of trust in them. Right now, that’s what I’ve got – but things have got to get better for that line for us to be successful.”

Krejci and his line aren’t the only reason the Bruins trail in this series, but they have the capacity to correct a couple of major problems: The B’s are 0 for 6 on the power play (all three play on the same unit) and have constantly found themselves trailing by two goals. If they can come up with something early in Game 4, it’d be a boost to the entire team, not just that line.

The good news for the Bruins is that despite their top line’s slump, they’re still just one win from evening the series and re-establishing home ice. If Krejci, Lucic and Iginla don’t break out soon, though, it’s bound to be bad news.

Mike Loftus may be reached at mloftus@ledger.com. On Twitter.com: @MLoftus_Ledger.